forgiveness

It was time for another blog but I wasn't feeling very creative. I should be writing an article but I think I'm going to work better under pressure. Today I was talking to a friend and told her I was thinking about writing a blog about holding a grudge. No big shouts of acclamation or affirmation from my audience, so I pondered it a bit more. When I got home I caught up on some oprah (go ahead and barf now for all of the haters) and her show today was centered around forgiveness. I fought the itch for a bit more while I searched through all of my old blogs thinking I must have already addressed this at some point, but... not so much.

I think I have a habit to do things big... I go big for the people in my life and sometimes that means when I've been burned, it means I go big in the opposite direction. Over the years I perfected the art of a grudge. I am fairly sensitive... okay I am sensitive and when I've been offended or my feelings hurt, I start layering up on the armor to pretend I can't be hurt or that I don't need you. Really all I'm layering is bitterness and anger.

My senior year of college a friend was honest with me about how she felt and I cut her out. Less than two years later I was going to grad school in Tennessee... at the same school where she was finishing her master's degree. I found out she worked at smoothie king and tracked her down hoping to hash out our disagreement. The funny part... she couldn't remember why I was mad at her. The experts always tell you that holding resentment doesn't hurt the other person but I don't think I grasped the concept until I was standing in the middle of smoothie king explaining to someone why I cut her out. It kind of takes the wind out of your sails.

Oprah had two courageous women on her show today who forgave people who almost killed them. One of the women, Gill is part of the Forgiveness Project check out the stories if you get a chance... http://www.theforgivenessproject.com/

Ghandi said, "The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong."

Too often I am weak... here's to becoming strong...